Weather Channel announces 2012-2013 early winter outlook

The Weather Channel put out this late fall, early winter outlook for 2012-2013. There’s already snow flying across North America in Utah, Alberta, and Colorado. As always, these are just predictions, but take a look at a few of these excerpts and pray for snow.

David Carrier Porcheron knows how to put that white stuff back in the air. Photo: Andy Wright

“‘The strongest, current climate signal is the cold North Pacific Ocean, otherwise known as the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This signal typically helps drive cooler weather in the western U.S. and warmer temperatures in the eastern U.S. during late fall and early winter,’ said Chief Meteorologist Dr. Todd Crawford of Weather Services International (WSI), a part of The Weather Channel Companies.

Dr. Crawford and WSI believe that an emerging El Nino event will be relatively weak. El Nino is the warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean waters, which can impact weather patterns in the United States, particularly in the winter months.

Since the El Nino event is forecast to be weak, WSI believes that impacts of the strong aforementioned Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) will likely be the dominant influence the next few months, trumping the El Nino signal.

As we’ve mentioned in prior winters, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) can play a big role in the weather conditions that we see as we head towards winter. We’ve seen the extremes of the NAO play out in two different directions the last few years.

On one hand, we had the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, which featured a strongly negative NAO and a correspondingly strong “Greenland Block“, bringing very cold temperatures to the eastern states.

Last year was the complete opposite with the positive phase of the NAO dominating, resulting in widespread warmth and a general lack of snow across the country.

Jeremy Jones laying one down. Photo: Dan Milner

Dr. Crawford says, ‘It is still too early to predict the behavior of the NAO for the upcoming winter, but it is clearly the key to a successful winter forecast. For now, we are relying on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation signal, which generally suggests a cool period for the western U.S. and a mild period in much of the East.’

Until the snow really starts to come down and the resorts start opening up, or there’s enough snow to get that backyard park going, check out our collection of Wednesday Wallpapers, all kinds of photos from deep powder to street riding and everything in between. Set them as your desktop background and keep on dreaming: